From Scripture Alone

During the 2021-2022 school year, the Exploring the Faith Class at Oak Road has been looking at various teachings of Christianity to see where these teachings are revealed in Scripture (the Bible). It is our goal to believe, teach, and confess what is found in Scripture alone. Many of us simply believe Christian doctrine from what our church has taught us, but we cannot necessarily show from Scripture alone what we believe concerning these doctrines. Through this process, we might find that what we have believed isn’t always in alignment with God’s Word. It might also become clear that what others believe is not in agreement with Scripture. In these instances, we certainly want to pray and ensure that we are understanding Scripture correctly and seek to correct any error in our confession. As a class, what we have seen through this series is that one belief connects to another belief which connects to another belief. When we are in error with one teaching we will find ourselves in error with another teaching. We have also seen how the connection of these teachings ultimately impacts our understanding of salvation! Just as our understanding of who God is, what he expects of us, and what he has done for us should come from Scripture alone, as Scripture is the very Words of God to us, it is important that we look to the work of God alone for our salvation since that is what Scripture reveals to us – that God alone saves us from our sins!

How Has God Revealed Himself To Us?

God’s Word

Reading God’s Word

The Triune Lord

Creation

Humanity

Sin

The Person of Jesus of Nazareth

The Work of Jesus of Nazareth

Law and Gospel

Justification and Sanctification

We are Saved by Grace Through Faith – Conversion

Baptism

Baptism in the Holy Spirit

Communion

More teachings from Scripture to come… Bookmark and save this page.

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The Circumcision of Jesus

The Circumcision and Holy Name of our Lord

Luke 2:21 – “And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.”

Origin in Scripture

Genesis 17:1-14 – “When Abram was ninety-nine years old the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, 2 that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” 3 Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, 4 “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. 5 No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. 6 I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I will make you into nations, and kings shall come from you. 7 And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you. 8 And I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.”

9 And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you shall keep my covenant, you and your offspring after you throughout their generations. 10 This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. 11 You shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. 12 He who is eight days old among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring, 13 both he who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money, shall surely be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. 14 Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”
Circumcision – from the Latin circum “around” + caedere “to cut”

מוּל or mûl – Hebrew for  “Cut down, Cut off, or Destroy”

Why Circumcision? 

1. Circumcision served as a sign! By its nature, it was a very personal, very private sign. 

2.  No Hebrew male could live a day without being reminded of the promise God had made to Abraham

3.  Every conjugal act between a husband and wife would illustrate the hope that God was working to restore creation and redeem all people. 

4.  Pointed to a true and better circumcision – a circumcision of the heart. 

Jeremiah 9:25-26 – ““Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will punish all those who are circumcised merely in the flesh— 26 Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon, Moab, and all who dwell in the desert who cut the corners of their hair, for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.”
Deuteronomy 10:16 – “Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no longer stubborn.”

Deuteronomy 30:6 – “And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.”

5. The shedding of blood, the cutting off of the flesh, pointed to our final redemption by the shedding of Christ’s blood. 



Why was Jesus circumcised?

1. Mary and Joseph were faithful Jewish parents. 

Luke 2:39 – “And when they had performed everything according to the Law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.”

2.  Jesus was born under the law to redeem us from being under the law. 

Galatians 4:4-5 – “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”

3.  Jesus came to fulfill the law and circumcision was part of that law. 

Matthew 5:17 – ““Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”

James 2:10 – “For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.”



How are we to understand circumcision?

1. Circumcision is no longer a sign of the covenant we have with God. 
Galatians 5:6 – “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.”

2.  Jesus has given us the true and better circumcision – he was cut off for you! 

3.  Jesus has given us the true and better circumcision – the circumcision of our hearts in baptism. 

Colossians 2:8-15 – “See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. 9 For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, 10 and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. 11 In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, 12 having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. 13 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. 15 He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.”

Ezekiel 36:25-27 – “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.”

Acts 2:38-39 – “And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”

4.  Daily we are to die to our flesh, die to our sin, be forgiven and raised in Christ, and walk with the Spirit. 

Martin Luther from his Small Catechism – “What does such baptizing with water indicate? It indicates that the Old Adam in us should by daily contrition and repentance be drowned and die with all sins and evil desires, and that a new man should daily emerge and arise to live before God in righteousness and purity forever.”

Cyprian, 3rd century Christian – “Let us, then, who in Baptism have both died and been buried in respect to the carnal sins of the old man, who have risen again with Christ in the heavenly regeneration, both think upon and do the things that are Christ’s.” 

5.  Like circumcision, this daily walk in our baptism too is personal and intimate!

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Christian Symbols – The Saints Symbol

This blog post was first delivered as a spoken sermon during a mid-week Advent series called Christian symbols. Isaiah 7, Romans 5:12-21, and Matthew 1:18-25 was read first.

The third symbol we’re looking at today is the Saints Symbol!  I think that is what most readily comes to mind for most of us Americans – The NFL is one of our national religions, after all. And when it comes to football fans there is no more a religious group than those that root for the New Orleans Saints! 

The symbol however predates the football team. 

This symbol is called the Fleu De Lis.  That is a French name that means Flower of the Lily.  It is a symbol of the French Royalty!  For the French Monarch it is to represent perfection, light, and life.  Louisiana the state and New Orleans the city have deep French roots – hence the symbol for the NFL team. 

The Fleur De Lis is said to be a Lily, while some say it is originally supposed to be an Iris.  Lily’s are white and this flower has a strong connection to Mary – the mother of Jesus our Lord.  Mary in classical art is often depicted with a white Lily in her hand!  This white lily is to represent and signify her purity and chastity. 






There is also a link to the Trinity – Three Petals – that are white for purity and holiness – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 

Both of these Christian connections to the Fleur de Lis serve well for us in our Advent season leading up to Christmas. 

The Virgin Mary conceived the Son of God by the Holy Spirit whose Father is God!  Here in the Christmas narrative, the birth of Jesus Christ, we have both images of the Fleur de Lis front and center – The Virgin Mary and the Trinity. 

It is of course through this miraculous, supernatural conception that Jesus, the eternally begotten Son of God entered the world.  His entrance revealed must explicitly that God is Triune.  The revelation of the multi-person nature of God was present in the Old Testament, but revealed directly and plainly in the conception of Jesus and later at his Baptism and later still through Jesus’ public teachings! 

The virgin birth is so central to Christmas – without it – there would be no Christmas.  There would be no Christ.  There would be no Christianity. There would be no salvation.  Because of this great goodness for man that comes through the virgin conception, it is no surprise that the teaching of the virgin conception is under attack. 

Comedians make jokes about the virgin birth – Some girl gets pregnant out of wedlock and goes, “Surprise, God did it.” And heathens laugh.

Religions completely redefine it. I’ll give just one example. Within Mormonism, Elohim (the name Mormons give to God the Father) came down in human form and impregnated the virgin Mary.  She was a virgin who had actual sex with God – thus having a natural conception though be it by God. She was a virgin who lost her virginity to God, and God the Father has a human body in this imaginative retelling.

Sociologists and Psychologists claim the virgin conception is a myth – an ancient and repeating myth.  They point across cultures and see this recurring phenomenon.  One example is that of the Buddha – born in India, it is said that the Buddha came into his mother’s womb as a white elephant during a dream!  However… she wasn’t a virgin.  She was already married and the marriage consummated. 

And a growing number of confessing Christians might shrug and say it doesn’t really matter if it happened as a virgin conception or not.  What matters they will say is that people believe in Jesus, or that might just say that the peace, love, and light that the Christmas narrative symbolizes is what is important. And for the more conservative, yet loosey-goosey Christian, it would be said that what matters most is that he died and rose from the grave for our sins.  However… if we can’t trust and accept the virgin conception because it defies our known reality and functioning of biological procreation then what else must we doubt or remove from Scripture? All of it would be my response and that’s the response we see the doubters [or their kids!] eventually taking.

With God, all things are possible – including a virgin conception and birth. When one embraces the revelation that God created all things out of nothing through his speaking them into existence, it becomes rather child’s play to consider a virgin conception.

Again and again in Scripture, we see that all humans are by nature sinners.  Again and again in Scripture, this inherited sin is credited to Adam!  It is not credited to Adam and Eve, or even to Eve, but it is always credited to Adam, just as we saw in Romans 5. Adam is the one whose sin is to blame for all of us being sinners by nature.  From Adam until Jesus, every man and woman came from a human father and was sinful by nature.  Jesus broke that pattern. 

“Just as Adam produced Woman without a woman, the Virgin produced the Second Adam without a man.”
― Atom Tate

Scripture does not directly say this, but it appears as if the sin gene is passed on through the father’s seed. Jesus had no earthly father.

Jesus’ humanity came from his mother.  Jesus’ divinity was his from the very beginning, though in his assumption of a human nature, God is his eternal Father and he was conceived by the Holy Spirit. This is mind-boggling and Scripture doesn’t answer all of our questions, but again… with God, all things are possible and we believe by faith.

In his names, given to him, we see the importance of the virgin birth. 

Emmanuel – God with us. Of course, he is God with us. He was born of a virgin! He must be God with us.

Jesus – The Lord Saves. Because he is God with us, he is the one who can do what we cannot do for ourselves. He is here to save us from our sins.

Whenever you see the Saints symbol, now you have a lot more to think about besides, “Who dat?” Saints fans will get that.






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Christian Symbols – The PX or Chi-Rho Symbol

This was the second symbol in an Advent series called Christian Symbols. Advent is the Church season that remembers Christ’s first arrival and looks forward to his return. Each of the symbols is tied to Christmas, as Advent in many ways is a countdown to Christmas. Before this message was given, the following passages were read: 1 Samuel 16, 1 Peter 2:1-10, and Matthew 16:13-19.

It’s a commonly seen symbol within Church settings and a mainstay feature of Christian decorating. It looks like a P with an X superimposed over it. Many Christians might call it the PX symbol with no idea what it means or represents. That P and X are actually the Greek letters Rho (the P) and Chi (X).

The Meaning of Chi-Rho

The Chi (X) -Rho (P) symbol is an abbreviation of the Greek word, Χριστός. When transliterated into English, Χριστός becomes very recognizable to the English reader – Christos. Χριστός is Christos, which is Christ. Christ as many of us know is not Jesus’ last name. It’s a title. Χριστός means “anointed one.” Χριστός in Hebrew is מָשִׁיח, which in transliteration is māšîaḥ. That looks a lot more familiar to English readers as Messiah! Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the anointed one.

Chi-Rho (the PX symbol) is simply a shorthand abbreviation for Christ.

To anoint someone is to pour oil on their heads. In the Old Testament, we see three offices among God’s people that have an installation by anointing. When Samuel was told to go to Jesse in Bethlehem to anoint one of Jesse’s sons to be king, Samuel knew he’d need some oil to do the anointing, so he grabbed a horn and filled it with oil and made the trek to Bethlehem. In addition to kings being anointed into their official position of service, prophets and priests were also anointed.

As the Christ, Jesus serves in all three offices: Prophet, Priest, and King (PPK).

Christ and Christmas

In preparation for celebrating Christmas, we can meditate on how all three of these offices are manifest in the birth of Christ.

Prophets speak the word of God to people. Jesus himself is the Word of God! John says at the opening of his Gospel that the Word was in the beginning with God and was himself God and that the Word became flesh. That becoming flesh was the conception of Christ in Mary’s womb and his birth on Christmas is when the Word that was made flesh was born and held in the human hands of his mother (Mary) and step-father (Joseph). You cannot become a greater prophet than being the very Word of God coming to be among mankind in the flesh.

Priests represent God to man. They also represent man to God. They play the middle man. Jesus does this as nobody else can since he is both fully God and fully man. His unique ability as priest is manifest in his way of sacrificing. Levitical priests in the Old Testament had the task of taking people’s animal offerings and sacrificing them to God on behalf of the one bringing the offering. Once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest would make a sacrifice for himself for the forgiveness of his sins and then a sacrifice on behalf of God’s people for the forgiveness of their sins. Serving as a priest, not in the Levitical order, but in the order of Melchizedek, Jesus did not have to make a sacrifice for himself before offering a sacrifice for others, because he had no sin of his own to be atoned! Jesus being fully divine never sinned. This meant that Jesus as our high priest could offer himself as the sacrifice, which he did on the cross of Calvary. That sacrificial offering of himself that atoned for the sins of mankind, once and for all, could only take place because of Christmas (the Incarnation, his taking on of flesh, being born among us – Emmanuel).

King! Well, at Christmas we usually focus on Jesus’ kingship. In our Christmas nativities, we have the wise men offering their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. They came seeking the King of the Jews. They weren’t there for his birth, but their visitation is tied to the short Christmas season that ends on January 6th, the day the Church historically observes as the wise men’s time of meeting Jesus. Most of our Christmas carols speak to Jesus’ kingship over and above his other anointed offices of prophet and priest. We tend to readily get Christ’s office of king at Christmas, as well as during all of Advent as we long for our king to return.

Chi-Rho in History

In all of my interweb searches, the dates I see placed for all of the surviving Chi-Rho images from ancient times are usually in the 4th century. The image above is a catacomb image of Peter of and Paul with the Chi-Rho between them. It is rather certain that Chi-Rho was used among Christians earlier than the 4th century, but its popularity and utter dominance on the Roman scene came in the 4th century (probably why most of the dates I see are dated to that time period).

The day before the Battle of Milvian Bridge in 312 AD, Constantine saw a vision of a cross in the sky. His troops that were with him also witnessed this sign. With the cross was the message: “By this sign thou shall conquer.” That evening, he had a dream reaffirming what he had seen that day. So on the day of the battle, he had all his men mark Chi-Rho on their shields. He also placed Chi-Rho over his banner that marked his location on the field. Did all of these events happen as I have just shared? Probably. This account comes to us by two contemporaries of Constantine, Eusebius and Lactantius. As we study Scripture, we see that God has intervened in such direct ways within history.


It is for certain that Constantine won the battle and from that day, he declared the Roman Empire to be Christian. The Chi-Rho symbol then took over the empire. The Chi-Rho even appears on the tails side of a Constantine coin that is dated to 317 AD. Look at that snake being conquered, vanquished, under the Chi-Rho?

Chi-Rho Application for You

I know that many Christians get uptight about Christmas being reduced to X-Mas. They see it as yet another assault on Christ. Another maneuver to remove Christ from Christmas. The first time I saw the X-Mas was on the first Simpsons’ Christmas special. Homer’s Christmas decorating was a horror. All the reindeer were sliding off the roof and the sleigh and Santa were a tumbled mess on the ground and only a few lights flickered. His neighbor Ned however had the perfect house with decorations all over the yard, house, and roof. On the roof, Ned spelled out in lights, “Merry X-Mas.” It confused me. I was told it was shorthand for Christmas, and on the roof, yeah, maybe he would have ran out of room, so he shortened it. The character, Ned, is a Christian. He wouldn’t be intentionally removing Christ from Christmas, would he? That’s not his character.

Once, when writing Christmas cards, I wrote too much and ran out of space. To squeeze in Merry Christmas and still have room to write, “Love, Andy”, what did I do? I wrote, “X-Mas.” Then… to make sure whoever received knew I wasn’t assaulting Christ, I added a P onto that X. I wrote Chi-Rho. This meant I was actually writing Christ. And it made me think, maybe that’s how I should write Christmas all the time, and for good measure, I’ll add an extra s to the end to highlight that the day is Christ’s Mass! Maybe we all can do that. It could make Christ stand out all the more in the holiday that carries his name by so many who don’t worship him.

Finally, in application to yourself, remember this when you see Chi-Rho: YOU ARE A CHRISTIAN. You are an anointed one. Jesus was anointed with the Holy Spirit at his baptism, and so are you in your baptism. Peter says in 1 Peter 2 that as you come to Christ the Living Stone, you are a little living stone, being built into a spiritual house, in which Christians are royal priesthood who proclaim praises of him who called us out of darkness into his light. There you have it. As a Christian, following Christ, you too work in all three offices. You are royalty, as a prince or princess in God’s family. You are a priest who represents God to people, and you represent people to God. We do this largely through our prayers. In our prayers, we are placing people before God. And as we proclaim his praises and tell of his marvelous salvation, we are operating as prophets, speaking God’s Word.

Merry Chi-Rho-Mass!

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Christian Symbols – The Jesus Fish

In 2022’s Advent season, I’m giving a midweek sermon series sharing the origins and meanings of various Christian symbols with applications to Christians as we look forward to the return of Christ and prepare ourselves for the celebration of his birth at Christmas. Before this sermon, Genesis 22, John 3:16-21, and Matthew 4:18-21 were read.

Before we speak about the Jesus fish symbol tonight, I want to share how the most well-known symbol of Christianity is being used in Egypt by Christians.

I had a student from Egypt – he visited family in Egypt and told me that the Christians in Egypt, who are almost always Coptic Christians, a branch of the Orthodox Church, are always at risk of losing their physical safety, and especially when going to Church.  The student said they have guards at their churches and to get into the Church, the Egyptian Christians would have to show their wrists to the guard to get in… on the wrist was a cross tattoo!  It proves they are Christian and that the mean no harm.  He told me that the Christians would have to check their cars for bombs before starting their cars to leave church! 

Being a Christian is serious business in Egypt, there are no cultural Christians, a country which is about 90 percent Islamic population.  The constitution specifies Islam as the state religion and the principles of sharia as the main source of legislation.[1]


I met a Georgia Gwinnett College student this year who was a Coptic Christian and I asked him about these reports I had heard, and he pulled down his sleeve and he had the tattoo… it’s very small, but it was clearly a cross.  He confirmed the reports I heard from the student who had visited family in Egypt. 


It is said that the Jesus Fish has a similar origin.  It was a marking to signify that you were Christian, but it was done in secrecy – it was a symbol that was only known among the Christians.  The concept is that under Roman persecution in the first centuries of the Church, Christians would make the top half of the swoop of the fish with their foot in the dirt and the person they were speaking to if Christian would make the other swoop – proving they were a safe person to speak to about Jesus.  This is a popular account of the origin of the fish, but it’s not based in any evidence.  It’s pure speculation.  The earliest preserved markings of the fish come on tombstones that don’t have more clear markings that say, “This person was a believer” but with the invocation of Jesus’ name no where to be found, so it is assumed that it was a secret mark to show the dead were Christians.  But there is evidence of these marking also as use in markets and entry ways to homes to proclaim the person is a Christian.  And there is nothing to verify that they would half draw a fish to check if who they were talking to was a fellow Christian.  Personally, it doesn’t seem to fit with what we see concerning their boldness in the Bible and in the centuries following to boldly proclaim the Gospel under persecution. 

The Egyptian cross emerged in a different way too… It emerged in 640 AD when Egypt was conquered by Muslims, and Christians who refused to convert were forced to receive a tattoo of a cross on their wrist and pay a religious tax for not being Muslims[2] (something that still occurs today for some Christians in Egypt – the tax that is).  The Christians in Egypt today choose to mark themselves as Christians.  What was once a mark of persecution is now embraced as a mark of boldness and perseverance.  People of all ages are persecuted and killed over this cross, and yet the tradition lives on. During protests and funeral chants, this phrase is often repeated: “With our souls and our blood, we will protect the cross.”[3]

The symbol of the fish was certainly used among Christians in times in which there was persecution against the Church – was it a sign only known among Christians, maybe or maybe not, but it’s a sign that was used and displayed.  It’s a sign that we call the Jesus Fish today because we know the fish is to represent Christianity, but in every way the fish was created to represent Jesus and in fact to tell a confessional creed about who Jesus was and is!  It’s a symbol that points us to Christmas and the birth of the Son of God, our Savior. 

Let me demonstrate this for you.  Many today might think the fish is a symbol that was chosen to fit the call that Jesus gave to his disciples to be fishers of men, or a reminder of Jesus’ miracles of multiplying fish for food, or his first disciples being fishermen by trade. 

There is so much more to this that we miss as English speakers.

ιχθύς is the 1st century koine Greek word for fish. The early Church used this word as an acrostic.

ι – Ἰησοῦς – Jesus
χ – Χριστός – Christ (the anointed of the Lord)
θ – Θεοῦ – The genitive case of Θεóς, meaning “of God”
ύ – υἱός – Son
ς – σωτήρ (ς is at the end of words) – Savior

Together ιχθύς represents the confession of faith – “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior.”

And is this not the message of Christmas? Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, our Savior!

This message was proclaimed by the early church with another symbol that likely predates the fish.  It is the Christian Wheel symbol.[4] 

Tertullian (c. 160-220) in his treatise on baptism, De Baptismo 1, reasons that as water sustains fish, “we, little fishes, after the image of our ichthus, Jesus Christ, are born in the water (of baptism) nor are we safe but by remaining in it.”[5]

Jesus is our Fish!!! Have you ever heard that one before?  I hadn’t until preparing for this Advent message.  From what I have read thus far on this subject, Tertullian wrote these words in Latin, but when he got to calling Jesus our fish, he wrote Icthus in Greek.  This shows that it was certainly well known that ICTHUS meant more than just fish – this acrostic had spread far and wide for him to drop a Greek word in the midst of Latin with no explanation or translation following it.  

Jesus Christ Son of God Savior!  That is the central creed of Christianity.  That is the good news of Christmas. 

Jesus is the Son of God came into the world – not to condemn the world but to save the world.  Just as we read from Genesis 22 and John 3… What was asked of Abraham, God actually did… He provided his son to be the sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins. God gave his one and only son for your salvation, for you to have eternal life. He gave this provision for everyone and for all who hear and believe they are saved.

May we, this Christmas, be so bold as to make sure we display and make prominent this message – that Christmas is not just Santa and presents and hard eggnog and naughty elves parties – this is the day of peace and favor from God to all men because on this day in the City of David your savior – the Christ – has been born. 

To quote an old hippie saying about having long-hair in the 60s – “Let your freak flag fly” – Let people see Jesus and know Jesus in your life this Advent as we lead up to Christmas.  Amen. 

[1] https://www.state.gov/reports/2019-report-on-international-religious-freedom/egypt/

[2] https://egyptianstreets.com/2022/02/28/the-story-behind-the-coptic-cross-tattoo/  They choose to mark themselves today unless the parents mark their young children to help ensure they cannot so easily convert to Islam under pressure. 

[3] https://sttekla.org/posts/youth/the-meaning-of-our-coptic-cross-tattoo/

[4] http://www.bordencompanyinc.com/ixoye-story.html

[5] https://earlychurchhistory.org/christian-symbols/the-fish-symbol-ichthus/

Andy WrasmanLeave a comment